As I begin hitting the keys, it’s just gone 11:30am, and Sunday Morning has almost gone. Simon and Garfunkel are filling the study with sound, sun is streaming through the window, I’ve just had a cup of tea, and all seems well with the world.
The morning began with the children waking us up to ask how to spell Labyrinth. My fault entirely - we all crammed into the playroom last night, across the couch and floor to eat popcorn and watch the David Bowie movie. I have never seen the children so sucked into a movie before. Perhaps the Goblin King stealing the girl’s little brother right at the start “got” them.
This morning they have delighted in impersonating the sounds made by the “Bog of Eternal Stench”… you can imagine.
Ok… just had to stop writing and dance in my chair. Perhaps I should keep quiet about that. “Forever and for Always” just came on - the old Shania Twain track. When I was in my early 20s I went to visit my cousin in California, just about at the same time Shania became huge (and before a lot of the crappy pop tracks she later recorded). I can’t concentrate on writing at all while this track is playing - it’s almost funny.
Ok. Recomposed myself.
After I got out of the shower this morning I pulled some clothes on, let the chickens out, and looked in on the playroom to see what everybody wanted for breakfast. Hmmm… no younger children.
“Where is everybody?”
“At the playpark”
“What?!”
As I scrambled to pull my shoes on, shouting something about them being too young to go to the park on their own, W appeared at the top of the stairs.
“One of their friends arrived while you were in the shower - they are in the park with them”.
Only they were not.
It transpired their school friend and her older sister had invited them to the park, and then left.
I pulled my shoes on and walked out to bring them back - greeted by Little Miss 7 in floods of tears (tears that only appeared on my approach - she’s been doing that a lot lately).
In order to make everybody else happy (something else that’s been happening a lot lately), I ended up out in the street ten minutes later with all the children on roller skates, holding our youngest’s hand. As I wandered up and down the road freezing my ass off, I noticed once again that our kids were the only ones out playing, and I was the only parent.
In the end I convinced everybody that going back inside - in the warm - was a really good idea, and we set about littering the hallway with coats, scarves, helmets and rollerskates.
I looked at my watch.
9:30am.